Justin Bieber is acknowledging his recent viral encounters with the paparazzi, and discussing his mental health, on his new album Swag.
The 31-year-old singer dropped his eighth studio album at midnight on Friday, July 11, with little forewarning. The album’s existence only came to light Thursday, July 10, when billboards emerged in Reykjavík, New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles promoting Bieber’s return.
The 21-track Swag features a mixture of lo-fi R&B-infused pop tracks and voice notes that appear to ruminate on fame, mental health and love. Bieber appears to acknowledge his cryptic social media activity in recent months and even uses audio clips from recent encounters with paparazzi photographers — you know which ones — to comment on the public discourse about him.
Elsewhere on the record, Bieber appears to allude to rumors of marital issues with his wife Hailey, 28, on the track “Walking Away.” Despite the tough times, Bieber makes clear that he’s in it for the long haul.
He croons, “Baby, I ain’t walking away / You were my diamond / Gave you a ring / I made you a promise. I told you, ‘I’d change’ / It’s just human nature / These growing pains / And baby, I ain’t walking away.”
Scroll down for more on Bieber’s latest album:
Justin Bieber Is ‘Standing on Business’
Just one month after his heated June 13 encounter with paparazzi went viral on social media, Bieber is using his now-infamous words for his own gain.
The album contains a 50-second voice note, titled “Standing on Business,” which opens with a clip of Bieber declaring, “You’re not getting it. It’s not clocking to you. It’s not clocking to you that I’m standing on business, is it?”
The clip then segues into a conversation between the singer and comedian Druski, who jests with his pal over his pronunciation of the word “business” during the exchange.
“I like that you pronounce business,” Druski tells Bieber. “I say, ‘Standing on bid-ness.’ I don’t say, ‘Standing on business, bro.’ … You were pronounciating [sic] every word. You can’t pronunciate [sic] every word when you doing that!”
Bieber can be heard agreeing, “Yeah, you’re right, you’re right.”
Bieber Addresses the Paparazzi?
The singer appears to sing about the trappings of fame, namely his every movement being tracked by paparazzi, on the song “Butterflies.”
The song opens with another recent viral encounter with photographers, this time outside a coffee shop in Palm Springs, California, in April. “[You] want money, money, money, money … get out of here,” the star can be heard saying. “All you want is money. Go. Get out of here. All you guys want is money. You don’t care about people. Only money.”
Justin Bieber’s social media activity has been raising eyebrows among concerned fans. In January, Justin sent his fans into a stress spiral when he stopped following his wife, Hailey, on Instagram. Hours later, Justin set the record straight, clarifying that he wasn’t the one to stop keeping up with his wife. “Someone went on my […]
The audio clip leads into a melodic song on which Bieber appears to address how he’s commodified by the paparazzi, resulting in his enjoyment of his career as an entertainer dissipating. He sings, “Butterflies, they seem to go away.” He adds that, he as a person, feels he is “moving, and moving, and moving, I’m just slipping away.”
Bieber’s ‘Therapy Session’
In another short conversation with Druski, this one titled “Therapy Session,” Bieber apparently addresses his cryptic social media activity, with Druski reasoning that the singer is simply trolling his followers.
“Even sometimes when I know you’re trolling, and they don’t even understand it. They’re like, ‘Oh, my God, he’s f***ing losing his mind!’ It’s like, nah, I think he’s just being a human being,” Druski tells Bieber. “He’s just enjoying social media like the f***ing rest of us. He’s just doing it his own way.”
Bieber responds by talking about his mental health struggles, which he’s been open about in the past.
UPDATE — 4/1/25, 11:08 a.m. ET: Hailey Bieber responded to rumors that she unfollowed her husband, Justin Bieber, on Instagram after fans noticed his name was seemingly no longer in her “following” list. “It’s a glitch. Didn’t unfollow him. Hope this helps!” Hailey, 28, wrote in a TikTok comment on Monday, March 31. She left […]
“That’s been a tough thing for me recently, is feeling like, I’ve had to go through a lot of my struggles as a human — as all of us do — really publicly,” he tells his pal.
“And so people are always asking if I’m OK, and that starts to really weigh on me. It starts to make me feel like I’m the one with issues and every else is perfect,” he adds, suggesting that he, like everyone else, is imperfect.
Here, Bieber appears to be asking for the same level of grace society affords to other people documenting their difficulties on social media.
